Despite the horrendous number of drugs I’m still taking I’ve decided it’s time to get back to writing.
I was tempted to pass over number 9 in my list and go straight to number 10 but then I remembered why I started this blog.
The purpose of writing about my childhood and teenage years is to face the unpleasant things that happened and not to avoid them. Glossing over this grim episode in my life would be dishonest.
This story is not entertaining, at least I hope it’s not, and it deals with some fairly serious issues. I’ll refer to the teenager who molested and then proceeded to abuse me as K.
This story probably isn’t told very well but that’s mostly because it’s one of the most painful of all my many unpleasant memories from those days.
It’s important to understand a little bit about the 10 year old boy that I was. Apart from the companionship of my best friend I was quite a lonely child and didn’t relate well to my peer group.
Most of the other children in school were wary of me, my high reading age, abnormally large vocabulary and already proven high IQ gave many of them a sense of inferiority. Despite Mum’s best efforts to ‘persuade’ me to be more sociable I simply didn’t have much in common with other 10 year olds.
Added to that I’d had no older male in my life since my daddy ran away when I was 4 and I spent my formative years in a female dominated household. I was easy prey for any older boy or man who was nice to me.
I was also, for want of any other description, quite a ‘dainty’ boy and physically delicate which brought out the paternal side of most of the men in the village but brought out a different side in some of the older boys.
I have no doubt that K targeted me carefully for planned abuse and he conducted the whole matter with what can best be described as professional skill. One thing he did, from day one, was constantly stress the need for secrecy, I wasn’t to tell anyone what had been going on.
Knowing in my heart that these things were wrong and that I’d be severely punished if Mum found out, I readily complied and in the early days was quite excited to have such a secret to keep.
From the first day he molested me in the village bus shelter K was very careful to ensure my compliance in our activities and was at great pains to avoid frightening me in any way. Each time we were together things went a little bit further to the point where he finally persuaded me to be completely naked for him.
That was the day everything went wrong for me and it was partly my own fault. Having begun to enjoy our little ‘games’ I paraded for him as provocatively as I knew how, deliberately wiggling my bottom at him.
I can only assume that teenage urges overrode his carefully devised strategy and without any warning I found myself impaled on him with my feet clear of the ground.
Wriggling around, frantically trying to get away from the pain, I tried kicking him but couldn’t really get any power into it, my arms were hampered by his arm round my chest so I couldn’t hit him. I tried to scream but he’d got his other hand over my mouth. I even tried to bite his hand but he was holding me in such a way that I couldn’t.
At last he got what he wanted and let me down to the ground again where I collapsed howling with pain and terror. Realising that he’d gone too far he hastily dressed me then sat me on his lap, rocking me the way Mum would do when I had a bad dream.
It took him a very long time to calm me down and he kept saying ‘sorry’ over and over again and then he said something that can only be described as shifting the blame onto me, the sight of me naked had been too much for him to resist.
He actually begged my forgiveness and it’s a measure of how I was brought up that I felt obliged to forgive him. I’d been taught that if someone was genuinely sorry then you had to forgive them or you were as bad as them.
For several weeks after he’d raped me K scaled things back and didn’t try to do anything that would frighten or hurt me. Naively I allowed things to continue and inevitably other unpleasant incidents occurred but he’d induced such a sense of fear and fatalism in me that I did nothing to dissuade him.
I think you are quite brave to speak about this.
Ian
Thank you for saying that although I didn’t feel brave as much as I felt relieved that I’d finally said this in public. That incident has been gnawing away inside me for a very long time and was probably one of the chief causes of the profound depression that I began to suffer as a child.
Love
Mac
Horrible to read, yet a recognizable pattern. The upscaling, like reeling in the catch caught on the hook. I didn’t fight back though, nowadays I can’t understand why. Maybe to punish myself in some twisted way?
The feeling of guilt, the fear of getting in trouble at home, the shame. The apologies. The same pattern over again.
Be safe Mac.
Love
Daniel
Daniel
That sums it up beautifully, exactly like a hooked fish. The fear, guilt and shame, as you say, were the very reasons that it continued for another 2 years without any attempt on my part to fight it. Every time he said sorry I forgave him, again and again.
Given my quite strict christian upbringing there was almost certainly an element of self punishment involved.
Love
Malcolm
Malcolm, a very brave post. When we are children we just play, thats all we know, its scary looking back where that innocent thing called ‘play’ took us and how sometimes ‘play’ shapes us forever. Maybe play should come with a warning sticker or something.
I am sure many will be reading your work and get a sesne of healing through it.
Very brave.
Hope you are not in too much pain.
Nick
Nick. How right you are! What had happened up until then was just an extension of the naughty little games my best friend and I had been playing since we were about 8, I had no reason to fear.
Telling this story has been cathartic, there are very few people who knew about this event, it was a painful secret that I kept throughout my childhood and adolescence and even managed to keep it from the psychiatrist who saw me when I was in my 20s.
I feel as though I’ve made a big step forward in finally facing this.
Love
Malcolm
What can I say? There are so many things to consider, to think about, to doubt about…Sometimes it’s just good to say it out loud, accept it, move on. I know the shame twists everything up, though. I’ll agree with everyone else above.
Much love
L.
L, that’s the real problem; the moment that sense of shame gets in even the most rational child is likely to start accepting blame and before you know what’s happened you’ve arrived at the “it’s all my fault” conclusion.
It has helped to finally make this “public”
Love
Malcolm